By Greg Bates
Correspondent
DE PERE – An undefeated record was on the line. All that hard work to stay perfect was staring the Bay Port girls’ basketball players in the face.
With her team huddled around her late in the game, head coach Kati Coleman had a simple message.
“I looked them all in the eye and I said, ‘We are not playing our game,’” Coleman said. “I think they took that to heart and they were like, ‘Yeah, we’re not.’ Then they just went out there and did their thing.”
Bay Port, the last remaining unbeaten Division 1 team in the state, got pushed to the brink by rival De Pere Jan. 25, but the Pirates came out even stronger on the other end with a 51-45 Fox River Classic Conference road victory in overtime.
Bay Port trailed the majority of the second half, but clutch baskets by McKenzie Johnson and Grace Krause sent the game to overtime.
In the extra session, neither team made a field goal, but the Pirates created some timely turnovers and went 10-for-13 from the free-throw line.
“It’s a big win,” Bay Port junior guard Alaina Abel said. “De Pere always brings their best game against us, they always want to win. We had a rough start, but knowing that we can work through it and make our way and make a comeback is good to know, especially going into the tournament.”
Bay Port, which is ranked No. 2 in Division 1 in the latest WisSports.net Coaches Poll, was held to a season-low in points in regulation with 41. The Pirates have now had three straight games of scoring in the 50s. The team averaged 66.1 points per game in the first 14 contests.
“We definitely have a lot of pride in our defense,” De Pere coach Jeremy Boileau said. “We outscored them the second half and we did that in the first game, too. Just the first half (deficit) was too big of a gap.”
The De Pere players were in sync defensively with what their coach was preaching.
“We communicate a lot,” De Pere guard Jordan Meulemans said. “On all their plays, I think we knew them by heart. We knew everything that they were going to do, and it helped us a lot.”
Bay Port (17-0, 13-0 FRCC) knew it was in a dogfight midway through the second half as Natalie Cerrato scored a basket to match De Pere’s largest lead of the game at 34-30.
With the Redbirds up 39-36, the Pirates’ Johnson drained her third 3-pointer of the game to tie it with 3:30 left in regulation. Bay Port took the lead back on a Krause long jump shot, but De Pere answered as Cerrato got a hoop to make it 41-41 with 2:43 remaining. De Pere milked the clock in the final two minutes but Abel got a steal and timeout at 5.7 seconds. After the timeout, Bay Port tried to feed the ball inside but couldn’t get a shot off as the buzzer sounded.
In overtime, both teams combined for three field goal attempts and zero makes. The game came down to a free-throw contest. Mady Draak hit a pair to give Bay Port its first lead in nearly 16 game minutes. Krause got a steal and Emma Nagel also drained a pair of free throws to push Bay Port’s advantage to 45-41 with 2:09 left.
Both teams traded free throws and then De Pere committed a costly turnover, throwing a pass out of bounds. Abel knocked down two free throws with 32.3 seconds left to put the game away at 49-43.
“We try to shoot 50 free throws every single day after practice, give them consequences,” Coleman said. “Free throws should be easy, right? It’s free.”
Early in the game, it looked as through Bay Port might cruise to a win. The Pirates led 20-10 in the opening half, but De Pere (12-5, 8-5) came out gunning to start the second. Meulemans hit back-to-back shots to fuel a 14-2 run as the Redbirds went up 27-23.
Meulemans, a Green Bay recruit, kept her team in the game with 13 points in the second half and overtime.
“I just felt like I needed to help the team out more in the second half,” said Meulemans, who finished with a game-high 17 points. “I felt like I needed to be more confident and I needed to be more assertive, but I always wanted to pass more and help the team, too.”
Abel feels like having her team getting pushed late in the season will be beneficial down the stretch. Being battle-tested builds character.
“It challenges you to have mental toughness,” Abel said. “I know our coaches in general always preach mental toughness, and this really tested it today. I think we came out and showed our mental toughness.”
Following the game, Coleman felt a sense of relief after her girls left the gym with a hard-earned victory against a solid team. Coleman was always confident, though, that her players would find a way to win.
“I always have this feeling that we’re never going to lose,” Coleman said. “I just know my girls – I always say, ‘I think they hate losing more than they love winning.’ But it’s just something about this group that I know has it in them and they’re going to do everything they can not to lose.”
Bay Port (51)
Grace Krause 6-11 10, Peyton Coughlin 0-0 2, Emma Krueger 0-0 6, Alaina Abel 6-8 10, Reagan McIntyre 1-1 3, McKenzie Johnson 0-0 9, Emma Nagel 4-4 6, Mady Draak 3-4 5.
De Pere (45)
Natalie Cerrato 1-2 14, Jordan Meulemans 8-10 17, Sophia McCarthy 0-0 6, Rachel Kerkhoff 0-0 8.
Bay Port 21 20 10 — 51
De Pere 13 28 4 — 45